


a spring fling

by screamlet



Series: A Study in Scarlett (Johansson et al.) [2]
Category: Actor RPF, Marvel Cinematic Universe RPF
Genre: Banter, Celebrities, Crack, F/M, Fluff and Crack, Friends With Benefits, Future Fic, Gen, Hook-Up, Male-Female Friendship, POV Female Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-22
Updated: 2012-12-22
Packaged: 2017-11-22 01:37:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,694
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/604394
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/screamlet/pseuds/screamlet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>New York City, where every weekend is marathons of <i>Halo</i> and the coming of the Thor baby.</p>
            </blockquote>





	a spring fling

**Author's Note:**

  * For [withthepilot](https://archiveofourown.org/users/withthepilot/gifts).



> Set during May 2013 at the tail end of filming _Captain America 2: MY BOYFRIEND'S BACK AND HE-- BUCKY NO!!!!_
> 
> And, for those interested: directly follows [Dress Yourself to Kill](http://archiveofourown.org/works/523168), though both stand alone.

**Chris Hemsworth’s daughter’s 1st birthday party.**

If Scarlett’s honest about it—like real and uncomfortably honest? Jeremy’s the most romantic man she has ever known. If she had to narrow their friendship down to one thing (moment, saying, expression, day, movie, anything), it would be this:

“You know I’d go anywhere to see you.”

That’s it. He said it years and years ago, about a year or two into their lifelong cruise on the USS _Best Friends 4EVA!!!!!!_ Scarlett had been in London for _Match Point_ and hated every second of it. Scarlett had been searching her calendar, sighing because she wouldn’t be in LA for weeks and she missed him. God help her, she missed the living shit out of him. Nothing was wrong, no, the shoot was fine, but she hated living in London and watching all these British people go to their homes, their real fucking _homes_ to see their real friends and their real families every night, while she... didn’t. And she had called Jeremy to whine and complain about how much she didn’t but totally did hate London, and he offered to visit. _You know I’d go anywhere to see you_ , and if she had asked him about it ten minutes later, he would have forgotten saying it.

It didn't mean it wasn't true, though.

Scarlett’s thinking of this, though, as she grips the back of Chris (Evans)’s neck, her arms wrapped around his chest, the bulk of him and his hips spreading her wide on a low makeup table-esque thing in Chris (Hemsworth)’s NYC bathroom. It’s a huge bathroom with a technical (polite) capacity of one, but it’s been a weird afternoon, to say the least, and Chris and Scarlett invoking their hookup pact during a child’s birthday party was the best way for them to combat it. Thinking of Jeremy isn’t nearly as weird as it could get, she thinks.

Scarlett bites down on the shoulder of Chris’s sports jacket and whispers near his ear, “You asked the most romantic thing someone’s ever said to me?”

He manages a “yeah?” in response and she grins, hidden against his shoulder, before she tips her hips forward, taking in more of him.

She whispers, “ _I’d go anywhere to see you_.”

Chris moans low near her ear. She feels his lips on her shoulder, against the base of her neck, and she can almost picture his eyelashes fluttering the way they do when they do this. He straightens up and thrusts into her, and when her lips part slightly, he seals his mouth over hers. It’s been such a long, long time since anyone has made her feel this... this _overwhelmed_.

“Yeah?” he says. “Sign me up.”

She laughs and braces herself with one hand behind her on the makeup table.

*

**The day before.**

Recently, it wasn't necessary to invoke Jeremy's travel pact since he had been living in New York with Scarlett and Chris (Evans) while they filmed _CAPTAIN AMERICA 2: THE COLD WAR JUST GOT COLDER_.

Like, living together in the same apartment suite.

LIKE THEY WERE IN COLLEGE.

It still hadn't gotten old.... for them. Everyone else? Yeah, it had started to wear a little thin. Sebastian had said at one point that the apartment smelled "like animal rights violations."

(He was just upset he had his own responsible grown-up apartment with his grown-up girlfriend. Oh, and that Chris had refused to give him a nickname, choosing instead to alternate between BUUUUUCKYYYYYYY and SEBAAAAAASTIAAAAAAAAAN.)

(No regrets. That shit was catchy.)

Of course, at some point, all dreams must die. Or come true, but Scarlett was pretty sure most of them die, statistically speaking.

"Good lord," Tom says when he stepped through the door. "Is this a party or a landfill?"

"Cleaning people came yesterday," Scarlett says from the floor. She, Sebastian and Chris were playing a multiplayer shooter and she was about ten steps from completing their mission. "You're just in time for our dinner date, though, very prompt, Tom, I love it, now shut up. I'm trying to save _America_."

"I'm an hour late," Tom says. She thinks she hears him sit down, but she sees from the corner of her eye that it's Anthony (in Evans-ese: FalCON YEAHMANYEAH), come back from the recesses of the kitchen where Jeremy has been cooking for years, it seems. "I've placed the smell, though: boys' boarding school locker room. Triple horror and funk."

"We're busy people leading busy lives," Chris says as Scarlett falls deep into the game again. "And Jeremy doesn't believe in showering."

"I brought my own trash over so their trash wouldn't be lonely," Anthony adds. "Kitchen's delicious though."

"Oh, have you all taken to _eating_ the kitchen?" Tom asks.

"That's just crazy," Chris scoffs. "Everyone knows you start with the bedrooms."

She can hear Tom shaking his head, disapproving, because his hair audibly moves and sighs as he does it. More reasons as to why he's their personal unicorn.

"Anyway- no, no thank you, I'm not sitting until _everything_ stops moving. I was late, Scarlett, because I was with Elsa and Mr. Elsa uptown."

"I didn't know they were back in town," Chris says. "Just for fun? Is Hemsworth still bigger than me?"

"Baby, he'll never have that Steve Rogers hair," Anthony says.

"Just a godly Rapunzle mop women dream about," Chris replies.

"Usually while talking to you, wondering how they got saddled with Not Thor," Sebastian says.

"SEBAAAAASTIAAAAAAN, how's that supportive? We were buds, man. Killed Nazis together, remember? Just tell me I'm more beautiful than the Hemsworths."

"Oh, _now_ you're method?"

"You've met my brother, right?" Chris asks Scarlett. "You think we could take the Hemsworths?"

She shushes him and he says, "This isn't over."

"Are you done?" Tom asks. It brings Scarlett out of the game for a second because Tom sounds like he's about to lose his temper for the first time ever. She grins and keeps playing in hopes of bringing on Tom's ragegasm. "Because they actually said-"

"Whoa, Scarlett, that was brutal," Anthony says, definitely to fuck with Tom. She officially loves him and wonders where Jeremy and Chris have been keeping him all these years.

“THERE IS A PARTY TOMORROW,” Tom bellows (legit _bellows_ ). Chris and Scarlett exchange a grin because now they know that when he loses his shit, he doesn’t even swear-- he goes Shakespeare.

“Tom, you’re crazy beautiful,” Chris says. “Now what about this party?”

“As I was saying-”

“Hey Tom,” Jeremy says as he walks in.

“I’m sorry, Jeremy,” Tom says, “But I’m going to have to strangle you.”

“Yeah, all right. Hey, if you’re interested? I made dinner, it’s in the kitchen on the stove.”

“Love you, Jer,” Anthony laughs from the couch.

“Tom, what’s this party?” Scarlett calls out. “Will Chameleonhatchling be there?”

“...who? Oh, Benedict? No no, this comes from Chris and Elsa, dear. Their little girl turned one and they’d like to have you all over to celebrate, though I can’t imagine why.”

“‘Cause we’re their nearest and dearest,” Scarlett says.

“We’re practically family,” Chris adds.

“Cobie and I sang her to sleep once,” Scarlett says. “A gentle rendition of Meatloaf’s greatest hits.”

“Please don’t-” Sebastian begins, but it’s too late. Scarlett throws down the control as she completes the mission and Chris wraps his arms around her for a really bad (but enthusiastic!) rendition of “I’d do anything for love.”

“How did they not call child services on you?” Sebastian wonders as he taps the controller to take over the game. Scarlett doesn’t let him wonder much longer, though, as she pulls him into her lap, controller and dignity and all. She and Chris croon to him until he likes it.

*

**The party.**

"Isn’t that too much cleavage for a kid's birthday party?" Jeremy asks outside the Hemsworths' door the next afternoon.

She glares at him and after a second, Chris does, too. He must have been distracted by a mote of dust or his own hand. (He’s not high, just oblivious.) "And that's too much chest hair, so button up," she snaps.

“I’m just saying,” he says because _wow_ , letting it go is not his strong suit, “I have a thousand nieces and nephews, and at this age they _bond_ to the tits they see, not the ones that feed them.” He adds with a little shrug, “I know kids make you uncomfortable.”

“No they don’t.”

Jeremy looks at her with that _girl, please_ look he’s perfected for her, with the furrowed brows and sulky gymnast mouth; she admits nothing.

“Is their door in a different time zone from their apartment,” Chris mutters. He hits the door with the palm of his hand a few times and when it opens, Chris (Hemsworth) flinches to avoid the faceful of slap. “Heyyyyy you’re here at your own party! We’re here, too! Hey!”

“Cap, good to see you.”

So commences the Chrisingularity, the rare natural occurrence where Chris Evans and Hemsworth hug for a long-ass time after a long separation. It’s a little jarring for Scarlett, who isn’t used to two guys with porn star physiques holding each other so tenderly while one of them says, “Missed you, Thorsies.”

“You two!” Hemsworth says when he shoves Evans aside. “I’m so jealous you’ve gotten half the band back together. Also, I’ve poached your friend Anthony because his son and my daughter are going to open up the hippest little record store in the city in about twenty years or so.”

“That’s such a specific and strangely endearing dream for your child,” Scarlett says. “Hi. Thorhugs now, please.”

“MY DEAREST MURDERSPIDER,” Chris booms as he hugs her. Deep down, she’ll admit that she’s glad they’re all on this boat with her, where they’re superheroes and still joking and _gleeful_ about it. “AND YOU, HAWKGUY.”

“Don’t pick me-” Jeremy says as he flails a little while his bones are crushed with this love.

“Oh, and the first floor bathroom is broken, so you should use the second floor one,” Chris says to Scarlett while he hugs the literal shit out of Jeremy.

She nods and steps around Chris into the apartment, leaving Jeremy (she hopes) to be thrown around for a while.

The apartment Chris and Elsa are renting for however long they’re in the city? Gorgeous beyond words. Two stories, wood panelling everywhere, lots of room for comfortable mingling among the surprising number of people they invited to an infant’s first birthday party.

When she steps into the living room, Scarlett isn’t the least bit surprised that there’s a huge crowd gathered around the birthday girl. However, she’s a little surprised that it’s _Tom_ holding her, rocking her back and forth, and _singing_ to her while hearts and labia flutter wildly around him. He spots Scarlett and, still rocking the baby, stage-whispers to her, “Dear, would you like to join me? You probably know this lullaby, it was composed in 1765 and the melody is very like, though not quite identical to-”

“Oh Tom,” Scarlett says as she steps away slowly. “No no, you sing to the baby. I have to fill Giants Stadium with alcohol and then, um, drink it.”

Tom’s laugh sounds like angels gathering together to hammer out “Carol of the Bells” on ancient, heaven-made instruments, forged in clouds of total honesty and earnestness, with a touch of troll because it was Tom and no one can deny that hint of evil lurking at the corner of his mouth.

“Drinks, right,” Scarlett says to herself. She coasts through the kitchen (too much cleavage and all, compared to Chris and Elsa’s other friends- damn Jeremy. She hopes he’s still being cradled and suffocated in Hemsworthian biceps right at this moment) and stops when she runs into the mimosa station. _Hallelujah_.

*

Once a mimosa has sung its own sweet song to her, Scarlett and her second drink drift into the other rooms. Chris (Evans)’s transcendent Steve Rogers silhouette stands in front of the gift table, Chez Avengers’s gift bag still in his hand. “Hey,” he says when Scarlett finds him. “So, I’m pretty sure we’re the richest people here and yet we underspent by like, thousands of dollars.”

“We can’t be the richest people here,” Scarlett says, though she thinks she might be. Jeremy just flipped a Xanadu of a house last month, though, but most of that goes to his boyfriend-brother person and their business, not to buying baby Hemsworth-Pataky something she’ll outgrow in ten minutes.

“I’m just saying,” Chris says, “We got her these cool electronic books? And Jeremy got all those awesome little outfits and shoes? But I’m pretty sure that box has a _jet_ you can drive around the house.”

“Okay, but she can’t _fly_ it, so we’re still good.” She looks up at Chris and shrugs. “You know people, they’re gonna show off at these kinds of things. I mean, what do you get the god of thunder and his supermodel wife?”

“That’s what I’m saying!” Chris stammers. “Talking books and some onesies? We’re so out of our league.”

It’s one of those days when Scarlett feels good about herself: who she is, what she does, her place in the world, her loved ones, the weather, this drink. Everything’s going pretty well- Chris can keep trying to bring her down, but it’s not happening.

“Baby,” she says. “You have to reconfigure what our _league_ is. Don’t be- don’t think that it’s by income bracket or something, because it’s not at all. Hems is great and all, but we see him four times a year.”

“So we should have gotten her a real jet,” Chris says. “Or a puppy. Or a horse. _A pony_ , Jesus, Scarlett, we could have shown up with-”

“Shut up,” Scarlett says. She pries the bag out of his fingers and places it on the gift table with the other elaborately wrapped gifts that likely include the Magna Carta, a sloth, acceptance letters to every Ivy League college, and tickets to Jurassic Park: The Theme Park That Totally Doesn’t Exist, Poors. “You’re right, we can’t compete with the personal McDonald’s that someone has gift-wrapped here-”

“Is that what that smell is?” Chris asks, before he realizes, “Oh shit, is that _us_?”

“But,” Scarlett continues. “We’re our own league and we’re doing okay. Even Tom’s out of our league. Did any of us bother to learn a Middle English lullaby that has babies sleeping and women falling on their knees, ready to blow him?”

“No,” Chris admits.

“No, we didn’t, because playing violent video games and making BUUUUCKYYYYYY cry was more important to us,” she reassures him. “So come on. Let the gifts go. I bet Chris isn’t even going to remember we were here.”

*

“I’m gonna steal a baby,” Jeremy announces.

The Hemsworth-Pataky collective have a library in this ridiculous apartment that puts _their_ ridiculous apartment to shame. Scarlett thinks they must be renting it from the Prince/Beast from _Beauty and the Beast_ , who bought it in a bad market while he was separated from Belle and sublets it when they’re on-again and happy in medieval France. These are the elaborate theories she’s concocted with Chris while they drink mimosas on the warm leather couch in Hemsworth elder’s library, and it takes her a minute to leave that mindset and hear what Jeremy said.

“Did you say you’re going to or you already did?” she asks.

“Oh, going to, definitely going,” Jeremy says. “There’s a whole room next to this one where all the kids are playing.”

“Is Tom singing them more songs on his mandolin?”

“No.”

“On his lute?”

“Clarinet?”

“Pan pipes?”

“He would totally have pan pipes,” Chris laughs. “Holy shit, add that to- text it to someone, I don’t know, we gotta get those for his birthday.”

“Which we already missed,” Scarlett snorts.

“Guys, seriously,” Jeremy whines. “I want a baby and there’s an organic free range baby supermarket there. Why can’t I just take one home?”

“Um, because you live with us,” Chris says.

“No babies,” Scarlett says.

“It’d be like _Three Men and a Baby_ ,” Jeremy says.

“Excuse you,” Scarlett replies.

“And... we _want_ that?” Chris asks.

“Ugh, probably not,” Jeremy sighs. He plops on the floor and leans his head against Scarlett’s legs. “I miss my dogs. I thought I’d fly back to LA and see them more often than I have.”

“So go see them,” Scarlett says.

“Yeah, maybe.”

She rests her hand in his hair and scratches at him, the way she would his dogs, which Jeremy really likes because he’s probably part canine somewhere in his DNA (in the best way possible).

“I thought there would be games at this thing,” Chris says after a while. “Tom said there would... when he started speaking to us again.”

Scarlett looks at him for a long moment before she says, “For the _kids_ , Chris.”

He’s one of those people whose ideas don’t sound any better outside his head. Bless, though; he’ll always have her to point that out for him.

*

The mom of the hour eventually finds them holed up in another room on the first floor (they had to migrate once people discovered it existed next to Jeremy’s babytopia). Even though it’s her place, she doesn’t come in; she stands in the doorway and asks, “Did you get a chance to see the baby yet?”

“Oh, uh, I did,” Scarlett says. “When I came in.”

“Well, _yeah_ ,” Elsa laughs, “But did you get to _see_ her and hold her?”

There’s a one or two second delay on Scarlett’s answer, so Chris saves her. “Not yet,” Chris replies, “But we totally will.”

Once Elsa leaves, Scarlett says, “Isn’t it weird how the word _totally_ means _absolutely not no way never_ these days?”

“I can hold a baby,” Chris protests. “I can hold three or four babies in one arm, it’s not the _babies_ that freak me out.”

“Maybe a little,” she replies.

“Not even a little,” Chris says. “It’s all the people who’ll be standing around, taking pics on their cell phones, and you’ll be within six feet of me and suddenly we want a big family because we both have big families.”

“Huh, that escalated quickly,” Scarlett says. “Be right back.”

Scarlett finds Elsa in the babyfarm and spares a second to stare at Jeremy and no less than four moms standing among all the kids, chatting while he balances a girl on his hip like she belongs there. Scarlett shoots him a smile and gets close to Elsa, who’s just changed the birthday girl on the insanely elaborate changing table in the corner.

“Hey, so,” Scarlett says, hoping this doesn’t sound too- “Um, could Chris and I hang out with the baby in the other room for a minute or two? He just- _we_ just- there’s always so many people around, you know, since it’s the kid’s _birthday_ and everything, and-”

To her credit, Elsa looks a little alarmed. Scarlett tries to look earnest and excited, but maybe she fails at that because Elsa gives her a half-hug instead.

A half-hug and the baby.

“Hey there,” Scarlett says as she walks back to the room where she left Chris, Elsa right next to her and ready to dive in, which she really appreciates. “You really are like a little sack of potatoes, aren’t you?”

“I thought you had a big family,” Elsa says.

“I mean, I do,” she replies. “But I’m always working, so I- you know, I see them when they’re kidney beans and then I come back and they’re standing or running, or aggressively demanding a smartphone and there’s nothing in between.”

She comes into the room and Chris laughs before comes over. “You’re not a cocktail,” he informs the baby. “Did you know that? You are _not_ a cocktail.”

“So: not a cocktail, yes to a sack of potatoes,” Elsa says. “Just making sure I’ve got it.”

“We got her onesies and books and socks and I think at least three pairs of tiny shoes,” Scarlett says suddenly. The baby’s looked right into her eyes and it’s like a tiny Tilda Swinton, ripping surface truths out of her soul before she could say stop. “I’m sorry none of those is a pony.”

“No, no, don’t be sorry!” Elsa says. “We could _always_ use more clothes, especially since Chris’s family is so set on outdoing each other on the more extravagant presents. And honestly, how many hours a day do they expect her to spend driving tiny plastic cars?”

“We’re also really sorry we didn’t learn to play a 15th century musical instrument and serenade her like Tom,” Chris says.

“Well, there’s always next year,” Elsa says.

Chris takes the baby out of Scarlett’s arms and Scarlett nods to herself, satisfied with a job well done. She gently touches Elsa’s shoulder and asks, “Is there a patio or a balcony so I can enjoy the outside and definitely _not_ smoke twenty or thirty cigarettes?”

*

It’s New York, so there’s a balcony but it’s roughly the size of a coffin and suspended ten stories above the ground. Tom has befriended Anthony (and calls him Mackie, which is too cool for Scarlett to manage), which isn’t surprising in the slightest. “Of course you’re friends now,” she says as she steps onto the balcony and makes them edge over. “If supervillains did try to take over the world, I would send Tom to make peace.”

“Sweetheart, that’s the nicest thing I’ve heard you say to me possibly ever,” Tom says as he wraps an arm around her. “The nicest and the kindest. I’ll happily accept the honor of sacrifice unto the altar of peace.”

“ _Unto_ is one of those words I thought didn’t exist anymore,” Anthony says. “But here we are. _Unto_.”

“It’s a good and sturdy preposition,” Tom protests.

“I didn’t say it _wasn’t_ , you glorious freak.”

“You two are so precious to me,” Tom announces to the balcony and the city.

“If we’re at that time of the party already,” Anthony begins. He looks over and catches Scarlett’s eye as he grins at her. “Thanks for this weekend. It’s been strange and hilarious and I loved every second of it. Put in a good word for me with Joss so he doesn’t kill me off. Maybe same time next year?”

“You’re sweet,” Scarlett replies. “We’re not heading back to LA for a while, so if you find yourself wondering how to spend another weekend in the city: come find us.”

He laughs and nods, “Right, every weekend is marathons of _Halo_ and the coming of the Thor baby.”

“Romance in the modern age,” Tom says mysteriously, because the mimosas and baby magic likely swept his soul away to contemplate existence from a spot on the astral plane at the base of Disney’s Grandmother Willow. “This is love in the Evans-Johansson household and it’s so. transcendent.”

“Um,” Scarlett says.

“What’s the most romantic thing you’ve said to each other?” Tom asks. “If you can’t bare your emotional self here, in front of friends, with bustling _new life_ in the next room, then-”

“This is how he made Martin Freeman cry, by the way,” Scarlett says behind Tom’s back.

“No shit,” Anthony replies.

“Martin needed the catharsis, dear,” Tom says. “Scarlett.”

She thinks about it. She really thinks about it because Chris has held this strange place in her life where they keep coming back to each other. God knows she’s a serial monogamist like none other, but coming back to Chris over and over again- it’s comforting. It’s comforting the way they never hit stop, just pause and play, play, play.

“Thanks for taking out the trash,” Scarlett finally says.

“Lord,” Tom says. Scarlett has been smoking since she stepped outside and she chokes on a breath of smoke as Tom clutches his own chest, clearly overcome. “ _Lord_ , but that gets you. It pierces right to the heart of everything, doesn’t it? It says it all. _Thanks_ , he said, _for taking out the trash_. I _thank you_ -”

“Jesus, Tom, you need to fucking eat something,” a voice says. The three of them look around and then Anthony points to the balcony above them- right, two stories. Scarlett would know that Massachusetts JAYYYYSUS from four _Cloud Atlas_ es away.

“Remember that time I took out the trash?” Scarlett calls up.

“I wish I knew what was in there that you were like, THIS NEEDS TO GO,” Chris calls back.

She puts out her cigarette and grabs Tom’s chin, pulling his face down so they’re eye to eye. “Go eat something.” She kisses the tip of his nose for good measure and lets him go.

“I’ll force feed him, don’t worry,” Anthony says. “Come find me if you hear me crying.”

“The tears mean our souls have commingled,” Tom protests, and Scarlett sighs because it’s not the first time she’s heard him say that.

*

“How have we not been up here yet?” Scarlett asks. The noise of the party drifts up the stairs, but no one has come up here yet. “Oh, bedrooms. Actual living space. Makes sense.”

She sees Chris on the balcony he was yelling from through the master bedroom. He turns around when he hears her, then wilts and splays his arms across the stone ledge of the balcony in some dramatic _Flashdance_ action that hasn’t been seen before or since.

“Was that really the most romantic thing I’ve said to you?”

“Well, I’m still trying to figure out where Tom got the word _romance_ , though,” Scarlett replies. “Halo multiplayer and a general antipathy towards humanity are about the only thing we have in common. And that undying friendship and love for each other, but that’s not _romance_.”

Chris nods at her wisdom and she nods back.

“We should check out the bathroom,” he says after a minute. “Chris said something about it when we came in and if it’s anything like the rest of this place.”

She holds out her hand for him. When he takes it, she looks into his face, past Steve Rogers as she looks for grizzly man Chris, who hates being blond and loves his buzz cut and beard more than anything. He scrunches up his face, like he’s gotten a voicemail and he’s trying to remember what his mom or sister or assistant changed the PIN to; that’s the Chris she knows.

“What I like about our arrangement,” she says as she leads him to the bathroom, “Is that we’re so... we know what we need, what we like.”

“See, I think that’s romance,” Chris says. “If either of us said _wanna fuck_ , it’d be all sad and trying too hard.”

“Exactly!” Scarlett says. “I like that I have to dig you out of the claw machine every time.”

“Now that’s the sweetest thing you’ve ever fucking said to me.”

“Ugh, don’t tell Tom. He’ll start monologuing and it’ll be awful.”

“Like he ever stops monologuing, _am I right_.”

They step into the second floor’s bathroom, agree it’s very impressive, and Scarlett nudges him to the long makeup table that takes up one whole side so she can climb him like a tree.

*

They’ve known each other ten years now. Right now, it’s not so much the actual time they’ve known each other that’s important, but the fact that for these past ten extremely formative years, they’ve had people in their lives measuring out their time for them. Agents and managers break down a year by projects, parents divvy up the holidays, siblings and friends mark their progress as humans with engagements, marriages, kids- it’s hard for both of them to think of how time passes without others to contextualize it for them.

Like, _for example_. There happens to be a clock on the bathroom wall in Scarlett’s line of vision, a clock she sees and notes, but the hands and numbers don’t mean much. Chris is on his knees in front of her, making her come again, and she remembers arriving at the party, awkwardly shuffling around with drinks, _holding a baby??_ , and right now it’s her and it’s Chris and it’s _sex_ and she’s digging her nails into a towel and considering shoving it into her mouth because mother _fucker_ he has gotten even better at this since last they hooked up.

It sounds spoiled, but she’s too used to having her assistant trail her at parties and whisper in her ear when it’s time to move on and mingle with someone else, and she knows it’s the same for Chris. Clearly, when left to their own devices, they’ll speak to _no one_ they don’t know intimately and they’ll just leave the party to have sex when they feel like it because they live in a consequence-less vacuum together and it’s kind of nice.

Chris holds her hips firm on the edge of the makeup table as she comes, muffling herself by biting down on her bottom lip, but it echoes around the bathroom a little bit, a room too big and too still for everything they’re doing.

And by the time they decide on Scarlett coming out first to survey who’s around and who’s not, she suddenly realizes _way_ too much time has passed in the human world.

Jeremy, that sweetheart, helps her realize this, since when she opens the bathroom door, he’s standing there with his arms crossed and eyebrows raised.

“Have some trouble in there?” he asks.

“Yeah,” she says slowly. She hasn’t actually left the bathroom or the doorway, thinking she’s better off staying in here if Jeremy wants to give her the third degree or embarrass the shit out of them. “Yeah, there was a little- Chris mentioned that the bathroom was having some trouble-”

“The first floor bathroom,” Jeremy corrects. “The first floor’s the one that isn’t working.”

Scarlett swallows hard and looks past the door, where most of the party has lined up to use the only working bathroom in the apartment. Halfway down the line, she spots Tom, who waves happily and says, “Scarlett! I ate! I ate _food_! The spinach artichoke dip is _divine_.”

She turns back into the bathroom and says to a now-cleaned-up Chris, “So, we’re going to leave and not make eye contact with anyone.”

“Ah, one of _those_ parties,” Chris says. “Lead the way.”

*

It’s technically late afternoon, but they stop and grab Chinese takeout for dinner and head back home, where Scarlett feels the sudden urge to clean every inch of the apartment to burn off this hidden reserve of shame that’s suddenly flared up. She didn’t see any of Hemsworth’s guests holding up cameras or anything, but she didn’t look very hard, either. Fuck, and that didn’t mean they weren’t tweeting or whatever.

This is why she doesn’t date actors, she reminds herself. This is why she keeps them at a fucking _distance_. It’s too easy to get caught up in this stupid, fake celebrity world where money and notoriety mean they can do anything they want and the only consequences are shots of her flashing photographers as Chris bends her over a bathroom sink because they forgot where they were.

Christ, they _forgot where they were_.

Chris is sitting at the kitchen table eating something fried and watching her scrub one half of the double sinks clean. She looks up when she can practically hear him thinking from there and asks, “What?”

“You’ve never actually cleaned anything in your life, have you?”

“Of course I have,” she snaps.

“So you’re cleaning those filthy sinks with the dish brush because you _want_ to contaminate all the dishes we use for eating.”

“Are you telling me we have a separate sink brush _and_ a dish brush?”

He polishes off whatever he was eating, pops up from his seat, and grabs a coarse brush that she thought was... not important. Or optional. Yes, optional.

“Can I help?” he asks. “Or is this some private penitence thing?”

She looks around at the festering mess Jeremy made last night while he was cooking. They had been pretty content to leave it all for the cleaning service next week. She shrugs.

“Yeah, I guess I could use some help with getting this stuff off the pans,” she admits.

“Yeah you do,” Chris agrees as he grabs the pans. “I don’t think you were here when Jeremy ripped me a new asshole for using one of these hard brushes on his precious nonstick pans, so let’s recap: _be gentle with his nonstick pans_. Or you’ll use a scouring thing and scratch through the teflon and we’ll get poisoned and die next time he makes us anything.”

“Could be part of his plan to break our lease early,” she suggests.

“Well, let’s assume it’s not,” Chris says. “Let’s assume we all still like each other.”

“We’ve got to stop making bad decisions, Chris,” she says.

“If only we weren’t so great at making bad decisions,” he sighs.

“If only good decisions weren’t so _boring_.”

“This is a good decision,” he says as he takes over cleaning Jeremy’s pans in one sink and she scrubs the dishes in the other. “Wait until I tell my mom I taught you how to do dishes.”

“I _know_ how to do dishes, okay, I just didn’t know about the pan thing. And the sink brush.”

“ _Ooh, you’re my best friend_ ,” Chris sings. “Even when you don’t know how to clean, ahhh, you’re a mix of traditional and non-traditional femininity, and everyone who judges us can go fuck themselves, ooooooh, you’re my ScarJo.”

“God, it’s like Freddie Mercury has come down from heaven to sing to me and only to me, but for some reason he’s using that nickname I really hate.”

“ _Ooh, and you love it. Scarlett! It’s Freddie! You shouldn’t hurt my prophet because he’s so good at sex- oh also cleaning- would you really punch Captain America in the mouth- remember when he went down on you- oh wasn’t that great-_ ”

Turns out Chris is also talented at mangling an astonishing amount of classic rock, especially Queen. He really does manage to impress her every day.


End file.
